


Cherry Wine

by EthosPathosandtheotherone



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Alex is a mess and he doesn't know why, Anxiety, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Codependency, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, He's a mess but not for the reasons he thinks, Implied Suicide Attempt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Masturbation, Meredith is a good friend(before Cristina left), Most of these tags are super implicit, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Panic Attacks, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Statutory Rape, Stream of consciousness type of writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 10:09:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23469700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EthosPathosandtheotherone/pseuds/EthosPathosandtheotherone
Summary: "The way she tells me I'm hers and she's mine."A look at Alex's life through his relationships with women.
Relationships: Alex Karev & Amber Karev, Alex Karev & Helen Karev, Alex Karev/April Kepner, Alex Karev/Isobel "Izzie" Stevens, Alex Karev/Jo Wilson Karev, Alex Karev/Original Female Character(s), Alex Karev/Rebecca Pope, Lexie Grey/Alex Karev, Lucy Fields/Alex Karev, Meredith Grey & Alex Karev
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Cherry Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the TW in the tags are implicit except for Nurse Jill's and Foster Mom #3's section so beware of that.

**Jo**

He never saw it coming. He knew it would happen to them, the women he loved, but he always convinced himself, and held on to the belief that it wouldn’t be like the other times. Jo had lasted the longest. He finally got married to her and thought it was over, the pattern, or the curse or whatever. 

But here she was, lying in the bed, back turned from him, bundled in and away. He’d hoped she would get up and shower or something because she was a little rank, but she just laid there like she didn’t hear the alarm, even though Alex knew her well enough to know she was awake. The trick was that her feet went still.

Honestly, before he met Jo, he’d never been kicked so much in his sleep in his entire life, or occasionally scratched by her big toe. No matter how much he nudged her feet back over, they always try to intertwine with his.

Anyway, she was fine, then she went to Pittsburgh, and then she came back fucked up. She was angry and sullen and sad and not Jo, decidedly Not Jo.

When he came home, met Link and heard Jo laugh for the first time in what felt like forever, he felt the weight in his chest shift, and he could breathe. It was always that weight, whenever the woman in his life finally lost her shit, that sat on his chest and held him under and suffocated him, made him panic. Every move after that was like flailing under water trying to reach the surface.

It wasn’t Jo’s typical laugh, a weird sweet, powdered donut and everything being okay kind of laugh, but it was something.

Link pushed him back under the weight and Not Jo held him there.

This was the worse he’d ever seen her he said. Drunk off her ass, angry, and sullen, Not Jo sat in front of the TV with cartoons playing like Alex wasn’t even there. Link left and they argued, screamed at each other and he was desperate and angry, and she was _something_ and angry, and he couldn’t grasp what that something _was_ , and it scared the shit out of him.

He was desperate and angry and scared, and he was going to go to Pittsburgh and beat the shit out of that something and get his Jo back. And he said as much.

Then she said she would leave him if he did. The weight doubled and paralyzed him; she would leave him. She got sick and now that he wasn’t enough to help, she would leave him and wasn’t that some shit.

He was desperate and angry and scared, and Not Jo was not okay.

Around a week later, she said it to him, Not Jo looked him in the eyes defeated and resigned and said that she was not okay and that she needed help, help he couldn’t give her. She had this tired look in her eyes that he’d only ever seen in boxing matches when they’d gone so many rounds and were both beaten to hell and looked like one more love tap would send them to their grave. She’d been fighting like that and he’d just been standing there like a fucking useless idiot.

Alex knew exactly what happened when that love tap finally came, that last little nudge finally hit and whichever woman finally lost it. Sometimes it ended in hysterics but mostly it ended with them lying half dead on the floor.

He’d left her on the 4th floor in the psych ward, kissed her and let her go. Jo was defeated and resigned, and Alex was desperate and angry and scared and just a little bit broken.

He never saw it coming.

**Helen**

Old books, that’s what his mother used to smell like. Before all of the tragedy, she smelled like old books, bedtime stories, and banana pudding. It was the kind of smell you didn’t know you missed until it was standing right in front of you, fragile and calm; it’d been so long since he’d seen her calm. It’d been so long since she’d seen him too and when she recognized him, he could feel that warmth that he always felt when his mother was lucid.

She’d been well for some time, evidently. She got her job back, got a regimen and decided not to tell him, said he was too busy and that she had to be careful, like he was the thing that would shake her a part even though he held her together for damn near a decade. She got upset, got a little frantic and wanted him gone and away like he was just another problem. But he’d never been the problem, well, not her problem.

In fact, Alex made sure that he was not her damn problem. Jimmy, his fists, his heroin, money, her schizophrenia, her meds, the bats, the people in the tv, the demons masquerading as Aaron and Amber hiding in the cabinets, God coming to strike her down and the devil coming to take her to hell, were all Helen’s problems. Alex never made the list.

Somewhere a long time ago, he became the man who took care of her. He bathed her, wiped her ass, scraped her broken and bloody off the floor, calmed her down, made her happy and never, ever complained. Well, not to his Mom.

When he got upset, mom got upset. When mom got upset, she saw bats and demons. When mom saw bats and demons, she tried to fight them off. When she tried to fight them off, mom, Aaron, Amber and him got hurt.

When he got upset, Mom and Aaron and Amber and him got hurt. It was simple math.

So, he never complained. He never made a peep when Jimmy hit him, when she struggled against him and stabbed him with a freaking knitting needle, not when she threw all her meds in the toilet even though the state only supplied them with a month’s worth at a time, never.

And when he broke, when he got weak and couldn’t hold it in, when he needed a mother, she would get upset and frantic until he apologized, and he _always_ apologized.

He always apologized. And then she would calm down, like a fuse going out on a bomb and then they’d all be safe.

So, needless to say, he went back to the library, calm and cool and apologized.

He always apologized.

**Meredith**

It had been hard to see her like that, broken, and bloody, and small, so freaking _small_ , on the gurney. He’d cried he hadn’t been able to hold it back and he’d cried. It wasn’t that bad, even though no one else had cried, because Mer had seen him cry before. When he did she didn’t get upset, she didn’t get frantic and ask him why he was doing this to her. Instead, she rubbed his back and held him close and told him it would be okay, and because she was dark and twisty “I’ve seen it all” Mer, it almost always calmed him down.

But now she was small, broken, bloody, and she had a chest tube and fuck he knew how much that hurt. Why hadn’t he been there? For all she’d done for him, all he’d done for her and how much he owed her for giving him a chance, he’d allowed this to happen. The logic didn’t make sense, didn’t really add up, but he could feel the guilt deep in his core because maybe this was the moment where her ties to him got her hurt. That didn’t make sense either but neither did this.

Surgery after surgery, he’d followed the gurney, held on to the rail and smiled at her, told her she was going to be fine, even though she couldn’t hear him. They didn’t allow him in there to hold her hand, but he sat in the gallery watching and waiting, while his eyes got dry from staying open and unblinking. Seeing her draped on the table made him think of the time she got her appendix out and nearly laughed. He could feel the small smile forming on his face, the first real one in a while, and he thought back to the first time she became someone in his eyes.

He’d been new to the Nazi’s little squad of misfit interns, and he made his way through the group making sure to belittle them and needle with cruel insults and petty pranks. He felt the underlying paranoia so sharply then, the fear that they would get close to him and he would ruin everything, and they would ruin him. Anyways, O’Malley cowered, Stevens shut him down, Yang always gave as good as she got, and Grey pummeled him with her fists.

He could admit, in the privacy of his own head where Jo couldn’t hear him, that Meredith was hot. Had she not been into McDreamy, he was sure they would have fucked. But in that moment, the little bundle of fury shoving him into the lockers and hitting him became the hottest chick in the hospital. Of course, later on when Izzie humiliated him in front of the other residents half naked, Meredith became the second hottest chick in the place. Anyway, her hitting him was hot and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it, well not ashamed to admit it to any girl he was trying to bang.

He was very grateful that they never did anything because her becoming his best man was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. Some might think it was Izzie straightening him out that made him a better, but Meredith had always been there to listen and not judge him for every little thing because she understood. She knew that he could be more, but she still cared for who he was then too.

So here he was, curled up next to her on this damn gurney because she was freaking small wiping tears, and snot and crap off her face and smiling with her because she could hear him, she could finally hear him.

**Lucy**

There was this thing about him that made him easy to leave. He didn’t really know what it was. It never mattered how cruel he was, how accommodating, doting, pushy, childish, or understanding he was. He could be any type of way and they would leave him.

Admittedly, Lucy had been a challenge. She’d been biting and condescending and sexy and ball busting and caring and a whole lot of things. She wanted him to chase her, and he kept asking and she kept denying and she was what he needed. It was that rejection, right in his face telling him he was inadequate and at the same time kissing him in the parking lot outside the trailer, that made him feel kind of whole and like he kind of loved her.

His whole life, and at this point it was easy for him to admit to himself, he’d been rejected. Most people thought that it was the rejection that he felt so strongly. That rejection, that crushed feeling paled in comparison to the kiss he got when he finally proved himself. When he’d turned himself inside out and laid it at their feet, laid himself there at their feet, it was always the praise that kept him coming back, that sustained him.

It was just easy to see with Lucy, easy to see himself scraping and wondering why he wasn’t worthy and why she could see through him.

It didn’t matter in the end because she left anyway.

Whatever.

**April**

His face hurt and he deserved it, even he could admit that. He would keep a lot of things to himself, keep them bottled and tight and hidden but that he could admit. He would never be honest to April about how he saw her and what he felt about her. Alex couldn’t even be honest with himself over it.

Her voice was high pitched, she was insecure, she was high strung and neurotic and needy and his type. At the same time, she was driven and had those crazy eyes that challenged Hunt with so much fury that even he’d been startled. She didn’t know it yet, but she had that bite to her, and he knew she would challenge him, urge him to be better.

That was in his thoughts though, in bed at night with his hand down his pants thoughts. He saw her crazy eyes and heard her low command voice, that weird thing she tried that one time that freaking _worked_. He would push her until she was done with his shit, until she would direct that bite at him and force him to meet her standards, her check lists and her neurosis and her impossible stupid, virgin fairytale standards. And he couldn’t meet them, he never could meet him, and her disappointed voice would _burn_.

April was hot, even if she didn’t know it.

Those were his night thoughts; in the day he knew she was a virgin and she was off limits. He knew what kind of man he was, a jackass, a bastard, not the one you lost your virginity to. She’d deserved more and that kept him away, circling her like a mangy dog and nipping at her heels to keep her away. She stayed interested though, because of some misguided fantasy that he was really something else deep down. He didn’t have the heart or the balls to tell her that there was no deep down in anyone; people show you who they are the moment you met them.

The deep down they showed ten percent of the time didn’t erase the hurt they caused you the other ninety percent of the time.

Anyway, he was sorry he yelled at her.

April didn’t deserve that.

**Amber**

When they were real young, Amber had been a little ball of fire. She was something like what Alex was after juvie; she was born mean spirited and angry. She hit the other kids, pinched Aaron, broke things, hid them from him and thoroughly stressed him the hell out. Amber was a mess of tangled blonde hair, dirty from darker strands and actual dirt and leaves and unbridled aggression. Secretly, part of the reason he learned how to braid was, so he didn’t have to get all that crap out every time he washed her hair.

She had been fearless, the only things she ever really feared were Jimmy and mom. In hindsight, that was probably why the world wasn’t that scary to her. Alex always admired that about Amber. He’d had to learn that bravery, how to bark louder so people would listen and then later how to bite harder and leave a man twice his size bleeding on the floor. He’d adapted, changed from his softness and learned how to hide what he hadn’t already lost. She never had anything to lose at all, so she didn’t fear a damn thing.

That’s why seeing her unconscious in a hospital bed hurt so bad. She was still small and now that rat’s nest, it was still a rat’s nest after all these years, was shorter and stopped right on her shoulders. Stitches marred the skin on her chubby cheeks, somehow at sixteen she still had chubby cheeks. Then again, he had only lost his baby fat because he rode his bike constantly and they hadn’t had enough money for candy back then, or any other type of food and he always made sure to eat last. His nose scrunched at the shit job they’d done on her face. Overall, the only major injuries had been some sort of knife through her hand and two cuts, one to the face, the other to her thigh with a butcher knife. A fucking butcher knife. Besides that, her skin was dotted with little bruises and scrapes.

He’d talked to the doctor in charge of her case, made her go through it three times before he was satisfied. The understanding look on her face made him want to throw something. He didn’t deserve her sympathy or her patience. He hadn’t been there. He’d forgotten her, pushed money and meds at his problems, at her and Aaron, and now she was in this bed and Aaron was staring at padded walls with no idea where the hell he was.

He held her hand and spoke with her for a couple hours told her about him, listened to her about her life, told her their aunt was coming to get her and that he was leaving. He’d forgotten how tiny they were, her hands. For all the fury in her, Amber’s hands were these tiny little things and he remembered when her fingers could hardly wrap around his, but it was still the strongest grip he’d ever felt. That little hand slipped out from his when he told her he was leaving again, and he knew she knew better than to think he was coming back or would call more. He wanted to tell her he would be better but honestly, he didn’t know, and he knew better than to get her hopes up like that again.

Later, he was in the kitchen scrubbing the blood off the floor so his mother wouldn’t lose her freaking mind when she wandered into the kitchen. He’d scrubbed, trying not to imagine her body, tiny, full of fury and never fearing a damn thing, being tossed around the kitchen. He’d been blinking back the wetness in his eyes because it was all so _fucked_ and he was doing pretty freaking well until he saw a tiny bloody handprint on the counter by the phone receiver, the actual phone nowhere to be seen, and he broke down. He collapsed and nearly knocked the bucket with the blood water mix all over the kitchen floor and sobbed into his sleeve.

Alex was careful to be quiet because his tears would only upset his mother.

He hadn’t been there.

He should’ve been there.

**Lexie**

Little Grey was not so little anymore, she was pissed the hell off. She was cutting and angry and still pissed off. To be perfectly fair, he’d left her on the 4th floor. He was so damn sick of the 4th floor. She’d stayed strong as long as she could all things considered but she didn’t account for the price she had to pay for being with him. Every girl took a trip to the 4th floor or got cancer or just left period. She rolled the dice and ended up having a psychotic break.

Of course, she had a psychotic break.

Alex wouldn’t be able to explain it to anyone, not really. Everything from before he’d left home was so mixed up and he’d lied so much to cover Jimmy and his mom that he wasn’t even sure what the truth was anymore. He remembered what it felt like to see a woman breakdown though, he knew it like the back of his hand. And then, suddenly it was like some part of his brain just activated and Helen was in front of him. Helen was pissed and frantic because Alex had gotten rid of that freaking hammer after she nearly turned him into a turnip with it. Did he want the bats to come kill them? They’d already gotten their numbers and now this. Was he working with the bats?

She’d cornered him. He used to know better than to let her do that, but he was just twelve and it was one of the first times she’d really lost it and he was scared and confused. She got more agitated, more furious and then she started throwing things and he was new to the game and couldn’t quite dodge well enough yet.

He backed away from her, from Helen and left her there letting Sloan figure it out. That was who Lexie wanted anyway, they both knew this would end sooner or later and that they were just filling the void until Sloan or Izzie came back and finally fought for them. Well, he was filling her void anyway.

Meredith had found him later, searching his face and telling him where she was. The 4th floor sucked and when he finally got there, standing in the stairwell because the elevators were off limits, in front of the door with the big sign beside it with a huge 4 that said Psych underneath it, he vomited.

Lexie could handle herself and if she couldn’t, Sloan and Meredith would help. Either way she wasn’t his problem anymore and even if she was, he would only make her worse.

So, when Lexie got back to the house from the 4th floor, her crap was sitting outside his door.

He couldn’t help her.

**Izzie**

The day he became a man, in his eyes and in her eyes, she’d walked down the aisle and he’d never seen anything so beautiful and frightening in all his life. Izzie was like all the things he needed wrapped in white fluffy fabric and he hoped he was all the things she needed in a stiff ass tuxedo.

In the back of his mind he knew that as much as Izzie was everything to him, he was never enough for her.

In the back of his mind, he knew that’s why he loved her so much.

He’d changed, recognized that who he was wasn’t enough by anyone’s standards. He certainly wasn't up to Izzie’s. So, he forced himself to open up, to accept that she cared and that she was going to stay. He leaned against her and loved her and made himself better, tried to make himself the man she deserved.

It was nowhere near the fairytale ending she’d wanted with Denny.

Then, she signed a DNR and almost died in his freaking arms and lost her memories and laughed at O’Malley’s funeral.

She’d had blonde short, fuzzy cancer hair and he was so afraid to touch her. He knew that she’d crumble into pieces if he did and he did everything to make sure she got better. He got her the damn pills and the damn food and water because she was determined not to take care of herself. Izzie reminded him of his mother those days and that made him nauseous in a way that he hated, in a way that made him resent her in the darkest part of his mind.

That didn’t matter though because she left him. He didn’t know what he’d done to make her leave.

Now, when he’d grown up and changed and tried not to be biting, tried to be kind and be the man she deserved even though that man had already died. The feeling when he read the letter the fear, the anger and then the crushing feeling of abandonment and of not being enough, stripped him down and left him raw in front of Cristina and Meredith. He’d stood there rebuffing any attempts to comfort him because if they touched him, he might crumble.

In the back of his mind he knew that as much as Izzie was everything to him, he was never enough for her.

**Ava**

She was dark behind the eyes; she had been for days, but he just didn’t want to admit it. And now, he was stitching up her slit wrists with precision Sloan would be proud of. Ava/Rebecca deserved at least that, she deserved better than what Alex gave her.

And make no mistake he’d done this to her.

But that was okay, well it wasn’t okay, but she would get better. Maybe this was the hump they had to get over to be together. Her wrists were wrapped, and he told her that, he told her that today was just a bad day and tomorrow would be better. She could get better and he would never leave her, and she would never leave him.

He was trying to ignore the panic that was edging up his spine. The motions were so familiar, kind of like riding a bike but taking care of a crazy woman. He knew the routine; she’d be low for a while and then after that she would bounce back. He would take her home, clean her up a little bit and then in a couple days or weeks or whatever she would be okay.

It was just that she was so dark behind the eyes, like she wasn’t even there anymore. It was so familiar, and the panic had snuck right up to his neck clamping down and choking him. It was just so familiar.

It terrified him and made him calm at the same time because he was fucked up that way. He knew how to take care of her, and it was just for a little while. She would get better and he would lay curled up and tucked safe against her in bed again surrounded in warmth and only being able to smell her because she was the only thing that exists. Right now, Ava was his whole world. His whole world was broken and dark behind its eyes and he knew if he put her back together, they would both be okay somehow.

Ava would be okay, and she didn’t need any fucking psych. Alex knew the routine; she’d go up there and come back down different and changed and quieter and sadder and screaming and even crazier than she’d been before. Or she’d just sit there motionless and empty, just waiting to die. He couldn’t let them do that to her, not when he could manage it. He would take care of her.

It was just like riding a bike.

**Trixie**

Trixie was his whole world. Right now, sitting in front of him with her soft lips, pretty strawberry blonde hair and wild eyes, she was everything. She had just the right touch of trashy that matched him. God help him, he loved her. When he’d met her, she had been just another girl he picked up at some random bar and then somehow, he ended up staying most nights at her apartment, tucked between her thighs and showing her just how much he needed her.

Of course, there were bumps in the road, every relationship had them. They argued, he yelled, she yelled, she cursed and spat and threw things until she broke down sobbing and he held her and told her it was okay.

Everyone got angry sometimes. He knew how mean he could be, how grating, how much of a jackass he could be for ignoring her, for talking to that slutty cashier or spending all night up in a study group because she knew he was smart and knew that he was lying and fucking some bitch. She’d be sobbing on the floor, clawing at his arms while he held her, and she’d ask him why he did this to her and why he was hurting her like this. She always left angry red marks everywhere she touched, he’d have them etched all over his body by the time he finally got her calm.

He’d see them the next day, still angry and red and he’d flush and get a little hard because he knew he belonged to her and she belonged to him.

He never left marks, but he knew that was different because leaving little red marks could leave to bigger darker bruises all over her body. He was sure that was how Jimmy started out.

Anyway, she was on the couch in front of him, waiting for whatever he had to say. She listened as he told her that he didn’t really like when she called him a jackass and said he was grating and that he was a bastard. He told her that he understood how he could make her angry, he pissed off most people, so he understood. She looked so hurt, her eyes were shining, and she said she was so sorry, and pulled away from him. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach that he’d fucked up, that she was going to pull away and stay away.

Then she asked why she couldn’t say that, but he could call her a bitch like he just did. She asked why he could make her feel so shitty and she couldn’t say anything. Alex didn’t really know what to say to that and he said that he didn’t call her a bitch and that he was sorry he made her feel shitty.

She asked why he was calling her a liar, asked why he thought she was such a bitch, why he hated her. She broke down in front of him sobbing and asked why he was punishing her like this.

Alex said she wasn’t a liar or a bitch and that he loved her more than anything and he wasn’t punishing her and that he would never hurt her. He apologized and held her wondering in his head how he could be such a bastard and make her feel this way, how he could hurt her this badly. She held on to him and clawed at him, sobbing and raw in his arms. How could he do this to her?

She looked up at him with teary bright green eyes and said she loved him too, but she wished he’d be nicer to her.

Alex wished that too.

But he didn’t know how to, not really. So, he just pushed her back gently on the couch and and let her tuck his head between her thighs and showed Trixie just how much he needed her.

**Nurse Jill**

Some afternoons the trees bounced up and down, unfocused and far away.

He could hear his heartbeat like this, where he was, far away. Nurse Jill, or just Jill where they were in the back of her car. She was beside him in the back of her car, tucked deep in the woods, which was actually not that far from the school if he thought about it.

He’d asked her for this, originally. To leave the school and go somewhere else so they could talk, so he could talk because he was scared. He was always scared these days. That day he’d had bruises down his side from when his dad was so high off his ass he thought Alex stole his heroin.

He’d told her that she couldn’t tell anyone because he had to watch his mom and his siblings, and it all came spilling out and shame burned deep in his chest because it was a secret. Jill asked to examine his chest, he’d taken off his shirt and it’d hurt a little, he’d flinched back, and she apologized and had been gentler with him. No one had ever been that kind to him before, and he’d felt so safe with her.

For the first time in his life, someone listened to him, cared for him and told him it would all be okay. He’d told her about his mom and how crazy she was and how much he missed her and she held him against her chest and he knew she was not his mom but in the back of his mind sometimes he wished she was, hell, she kind of looked like Helen sometimes. He’d been fourteen then, when her hands stroked his bruises and marks and bandaging his cuts and keeping his secrets.

In return he kept hers too, that’s what you did when you cared about someone and he couldn’t afford to lose her. So, when her hands lingered on his chest and when she started to look at him a little differently after he started wrestling, he let her. It felt nice to be wanted. She liked to be close to him and he understood that because he liked being close to her too.

The first time she kissed him, he’d been telling her about some hot blonde from class and how he was thinking about asking her out. Years later, he wouldn’t remember her name, but Nurse Jill would always stay with him. He was so nervous, and she offered to make him less nervous. It felt strange to kiss his Not Mom, but she always helped him before, and it really did help when he finally kissed that blonde chick a couple weeks later. She taught him other things and they felt good too, mostly because afterwards she would hold him close and tell him he was so sweet and that’d he’d done so good. Other times, she called him mean things he only really heard directed at women before, but after the embarrassment, those felt good to him too.

Those words didn’t become true until years later and he wondered if that’s why Jill liked him. If it all started because she could see it back then, that ugly, dirty part of him that kept him chasing women at bars and moving bed to bed.

In the beginning, he’d wanted to tell her that he was still ashamed of the stretchmarks he had from being a fat ass and that sometimes he still felt like he was. Sometimes when her hands traced up and down his sides and gripped his hips, he felt nauseous. He ended up staying quiet because Jill knew him better than he knew himself and she wanted him and sometimes he got around to wanting her too.

He should have been proud of it. He’d heard how the other boys talked about her, what they wanted to do to her, how good she would feel. And he wanted to tell them exactly how she felt in that cramped old car. With her towering over him, the curtain of blonde curls swept over her neck and smiling down at him, it was kind of like she was the only thing in the world and all he could do was make her feel good.

Other times, she would be angry or pissed about something, but she still wanted him. Those days, with her on top of him, all he could do was hold on to whatever he could grip and try and act like he wasn’t there. One time, near the beginning, he’d said something while she was like that and she’d slapped him so hard he tasted blood and tears came in his eyes. After that she kept her hand loosely wrapped around his throat, sometimes putting pressure on it so he could hardly breathe. She never really choked him but her hand around his throat felt like a loaded gun. Afterwards, when she came and finally moved away and he finished into a napkin from the floor of her messy car, she explained that what she’d done was a sex thing and he just said okay.

Those days, when Jill wanted everything quiet and wanted him to be there without really being there and he wanted them quiet and to not really be there too, he went in the back of his mind. It was like he disappeared from it all, unfocused and numb to it. He would look over her shoulder, out the window at the unfocused bouncing trees, listen to his own heartbeat and wait until she was done.

In the far away part of himself, he realized he kind of loved her.

**Foster Mom #3**

All of his stuff was in a shitty garbage bag and Foster Mom #3, or just Number 3 because he couldn’t remember her name, looked at him as if he was a shitty garbage bag too. She looked at his shoes, dirty and worn, and scrunched her nose like they were a blight on this earth that existed only to destroy her nice hardwood floors. She was the fanciest woman he’d ever met, she had nice jewelry on, sweaters that looked softer than anything but like you shouldn’t touch it. It was just that her eyes were so mean, like she already decided he was garbage.

Whatever, it didn’t matter. In a couple days she would decide he was too much work and get rid of him too. 

Except she didn’t. In the morning, Number 3 would come and try to wake him up for school only to discover that he was already awake and getting dressed. Alex was used to waking up early to get Aaron and Amber together and make sure his mom and dad weren’t dead on the floor somewhere. She had a lunch box packed for him with healthy stuff in it. He’d never had his lunch packed before. Then she drove him to school, riding right past the bus stop where the other kids waited and dropped him right at the curb saying goodbye and then hello when she came back to get him seven hours later.

Then at night, they would watch movies together, mostly romantic comedies and the occasional action movie. Of course, Alex never asked her for that, but he got the sense that Number three just knew he hated those cheesy movies. They would sit there, eating popcorn and curled at the end of the couch. He was pressed up against her side, kind of in her lap, where it was the warmest and the safest.

At first, Alex tried to make it abundantly clear the Number three was never going to be mom and he would have none of this bonding crap. Number three made it abundantly clear that they would be watching movies and that he would be on her lap even though he was way too fat for that crap.

Evidently, Number three didn’t care and she told him that he was very special to her; he was her special boy. Over time, he started to feel that way too and that even if she wasn’t his mom, she was special to him too. He also started to hate when her husband came home from whatever his job was and she would push him away, tell him to take a bath, always ask if he needed help, and then go away with him. Alex wanted to shout at the man, tell him how Number three had whispered in his ear about how shitty he was, how he ignored her and how he never appreciated her.

Not like Alex did. He wanted to yell at her that he knew what shitty husbands turned in to and that she was probably in danger.

Mostly, he just wanted to curl on her lap, let her arms wrap around him and feel her hands rest confidently on his hip. And later, when the movie got real sweet and the couple figured their crap out and finally kiss, she would tell him just how special he was to her and he would feel so warm and safe.

Alex missed his mother sometimes.

Sometimes, he got so angry and so scared that he lashed out. Number three never got angry. She would get down to his level, cup his face in her hands and get real close to him. She would tell him to calm down and ask why he was so upset. He would tell her and watch her eyes get sad like his eyes and she would take him upstairs to his room, his very own room, put him in his bed and get in too, like on the couch. They would curl up, this time front to front, she would push his head down to her chest and he would stay there because it was soft and warm, and she would stroke his hair. Sometimes, he got kind of hard against her leg and his eyes would get teary because he knew she would be angry with him.

Except she never was. Number three never got angry with him. She just held him closer, pressed her chest and her leg harder against him and muffled his gasp in her chest. She didn’t get angry when he started moving his hips either. Instead, she rubbed his hair and cooed and told him he was her special boy and he would always be her special boy and she was so glad to be his Mommy now. She didn’t even get angry when Alex came on her when she said things like that.

For those few months, Alex was the happiest that he had ever been. He did all the things she asked of him and tried not to be mean to her husband when he came home and Number three went away with him. He cleaned, did all his homework and showed her all his tests because he was getting good grades now. And when he got angry or got upset, she would pull him into bed, hold him close and not get angry with him when he couldn’t help it and rubbed himself on her. He always felt so warm and safe and special.

One day, he was on the curb after school, so excited to see her, and a familiar shitty car pulled up. It was the bitchy lady from the DHS was there with his shitty garbage bag telling him that he ruined another home and that he finally pissed them off so much they didn’t want him.

Getting into the car, he asked her what they’d said and when he could say bye to her. She said that they requested not to see him which was why his shit was in her car. Then she said he was going to a group home and she hoped he finally learned not to be so bad. He kept his face straight, didn’t show her any kind of weakness and didn’t say another word until they got to the next crappy home.

That night, laying on the cold floor of this crappy house, Alex put his head on his shitty garbage bag with all his stuff in it and cried silently. How could he have been that bad and not have known it? All those feelings, some too complicated for him to understand, pushed down on his chest and he couldn’t breathe. He was angry, sad and hard in his pants. He really missed Number three and wished she was here to take care of him.

He just wanted to be her special boy again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys like this and please let me know in the comments what you think. 
> 
> Sometimes male victims and female abusers are overlooked and it really irks me. In season 7, Alex said he lost his virginity to the school nurse and MAJAC acted like it was cool. That was statutory rape and no one said anything! It also bothers me that it took 14 seasons to show Alex's mother after giving Meredith and Derek 50 sisters and there hasn't been one discussion or at least therapy to acknowledge that he was abused as a kid. 
> 
> Also can you tell I don't understand comma placement?
> 
> This work is a part of the "Birthright" collection.


End file.
